On Thursday, New York federal agents apprehended a Boston man for advertising on Twitter that he would pay $500 to anyone who will kill an ICE agent.
Cambridge man Brandon Ziobrowski, 33, reportedly tweeted the following message on July 2:
“I am broke but I will scrounge and literally give $500 to anyone who kills an [ICE] agent,” NBC News reported.
“I am broke but I will scrounge and literally give $500 to anyone who kills an ice agent,” he allegedly tweeted. He also once tweeted he wanted to “slit” John McCain’s throat, feds say. https://t.co/BrTOodEUv0
— NBC New York (@NBCNewYork) August 9, 2018
Ziobrowski started posting tweets promoting violence against law enforcement in February, according to the indictment.
A Feb. 24 tweet by Ziobrowski read: “Guns should only be legal for shooting the police like the Second Amendment intended,” the Boston Globe reported.
His threatening messages on Twitter continued into March, when Ziobrowski directed the threats to ICE.
Twitter then suspended his account at the request of law enforcement.
At the time of that tweet, Ziobrowski had 448 followers on the social media platform, prosecutors said.
Ziobrowksi was arrested Thursday morning by the Joint Terrorism Task Force, NBC News said.
Ziobrowksi is due in a Brooklyn federal court and will face a charge of using interstate commerce to transmit a threat to injure another.
A Boston-area man has been arrested by federal agents in New York after threatening U.S. immigration agents on Twitter, a senior law enforcement official said Thursday. https://t.co/OzxKsQijcX
— NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt (@NBCNightlyNews) August 9, 2018
U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling said: “I can promise you that during my tenure this office will aggressively prosecute those who threaten law enforcement officers.”
Lelling’s office issued a statement that Ziobrowksi’s arrest could result in a sentence of no more than than five years in prison, three years of supervised release, and a fine of $250,000.
Hank Shaw, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Boston field office, said: “Enough is enough. This case presents the violent potential faced by federal law enforcement officers.”
